Machine to Machine (M2M) communications is emerging as a dynamic technology enabling an “Internet of things” to exchange information without human interaction. Recent trends predict an exponential increase in a number of M2M devices in a mobile broadband network, including devices of the type used as parking meters, surveillance cameras, utility meters, and other non-human interface applications.
These massive numbers of M2M devices result in a corresponding increase in control signaling and overhead in a wireless network. For instance, a base station may need to send various control messages to each M2M device, such as information for setting up or tearing down a connection, station identifiers, paging cycles, modulation and coding schemes, power schemes, smart antenna configuration information, and other administrative, management or control information. Each control message may consume network resources and cause network congestion, which in turn may affect voice and data communications. As such, techniques to reduce a number of control messages used to control M2M devices in a wireless network are needed to increase efficient use of network resources, which could then be re-allocated to other network uses (e.g., data transmissions) and network devices (e.g., human interface devices). It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed.